A mandatory meeting on Wednesday attended by representatives of the companies behind 22 upstate casino proposals featured questions only. No answers. Not even any comments.

Robert Williams, chairman of the state’s casino siting board, explained the strict rules of the meeting held at the Empire State Plaza in Albany.

“Applicants should neither pose questions designed to promote an individual project nor to denigrate another applicant’s proposal,” he said. “... Answers to all questions posed today will be published on May 2 on the state Gaming Commission’s website.”

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Most of the questions during the meeting, which lasted only an hour, related to a 90-page document posted last week on www.gaming.ny.gov.

The lion’s share of the applicants chose not to submit questions on Wednesday. Among the few who did was Brian Davis, representing Saratoga Harness Racing LLC, which is proposing casinos in Orange and Rensselaer counties.

Davis asked about jurisdiction over aspects of a project that are not directly related to gaming.

“The acquisition of that … of those permits, is that to be determined by local agencies or by the state?”

Wednesday’s gathering was the largest meeting of casino developers so far. It brought together lawyers, publicists, architects and others working for groups applying to build one of the four casinos authorized for the Hudson Valley-Catskill region, the Albany-Saratoga area and Southern Tier. No more than two casinos may be located in any single region.

A dozen of the 22 proposals are for the Hudson Valley-Catskills region, though only one is for a site in Ulster County, the former Nevele hotel in the town of Wawarsing. The rest are for sites in Orange and Sullivan counties.

Republican state Sen. John Bonacic, who lives in Orange County and chairs the Senate’s Gambling Committee, said on Wednesday that the volume of proposals for the Hudson Valley-Catskills region “is an indication that of the four casinos, two should definitely go in that region.”

The applicants had to put up an application fee of $1 million per proposal by last week, and final applications are due by the end of June. The casino siting board is to announce the chosen projects this fall.

A state constitutional amendment to allow casinos on non-Indian land in New York was approved by voters last fall.